


It Was How It All Started

by Intrepid_Inkweaver



Series: Tales of the Lone Wanderer [1]
Category: Fallout (Video Games), Fallout 3
Genre: Character Death, Escape!, Gen, Vault 101
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-24
Updated: 2018-11-24
Packaged: 2019-08-28 21:50:59
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,166
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16731276
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Intrepid_Inkweaver/pseuds/Intrepid_Inkweaver
Summary: Welp, there it is. Felix's beginning. I always wanted to write it down. I don't think it gets Felix's character across very well, though. Hm. Maybe eventually I'll try writing another version. Until then, it'll do.





	It Was How It All Started

Felix wakes up to the Vault’s security alarms sounding and to Amata shaking her roughly. The other girl practically drags her off the bed, and before Felix can even ask what the hell she thinks she’s doing, Amata shatters her view of the world in just a few words. Her father is gone. Jonas is dead--murdered. By the Overseer. Who is now after her, too.

The disbelief comes first--the Overseer may be a dick, but surely he wouldn’t be murdering his own citizens, especially not his own daughter’s best friend. And her own father would never have left without taking her with him, surely. Or at least telling her what was going on? She snaps at Amata without thinking, before her mind can catch up and come to the realization that Amata would never play a joke so cruel.

The anger comes second, but for the moment she presses it down. She needs to keep her head clear. Amata hands her a gun stolen from her father with a grim expression and tells her that she hopes she doesn’t have to use it. Felix doesn’t tell her she doesn’t need it, that she’s had her own since she was fourteen and that she’d practiced with it nearly every day since. She also doesn’t say that there’s very little chance of her not using it, because Jonas deserves at least that much.

She slinks past guards fighting radroaches easily enough, but a panicked Butch Deloria nearly collides with her in the corridor. She doesn’t like Butch, and he doesn’t like her, but she’s certainly not cruel enough to just let his mother die. In another circumstance, she might have mocked him for his fear of bugs, but there were more important things going on than their life-long antagonism right now. She pulls out her old BB gun that she’d grabbed on her way out of her room--specifically so she wouldn’t have to waste precious bullets on the roaches--and goes in with him behind her to stomp out the swarm surrounding the screaming Ellen.

When they’re dead, Butch helps his mother off the floor and she goes straight for the liquor cabinet. Felix turns to leave but ducks back in as another security guard runs past. Butch grabs her arm. “I heard your dad left the Vault.” She glares at him and pulls her arm away. He must take this as an affirmative, because he asks, “You going after him?”

She purses her lips for a second and then nods. He hesitates for a second and then takes off his stupid leather jacket and hands it to her. “This might come in handy out there--like, in case it’s cold.” He's not looking her in the eye and she can see his ears turning red. She’s so surprised, she nearly doesn’t take it.

When she does, she puts it on so she doesn’t have to carry it. It’s big, but it’s thick enough that it might provide at least a little protection from the weather--certainly more than her vaultsuit alone. “Thank you.”

“Tunnel snakes forever, yeah?” he says awkwardly, and then quieter, “Thanks for saving my mom.”

Felix nods before making her way out into the now-deserted corridor. She sees the horrible sight of Tom and Mary Holden getting gunned down while trying to escape. She shoots the guard who did it and doesn’t feel all that guilty about it. When she hears the shouting coming from Amata, and sees the Overseer allowing the abuse of his own daughter, she grips her pistol tighter and when the door opens she shoots Mack. She doesn’t feel guilty about that, either.

Amata runs from the room, crying, and Felix trains her gun on the Overseer's head. The anger is back in full force and oh, but she wants to kill him. She doesn’t though. Because he is Amata’s father and it isn’t what she would want. She threatens him, tries to get him to hand over the keys she needs. When he doesn’t, and when he starts shouting for his guards, she shoots him in the knee. As he screams, she tosses a stimpak on the floor near him and says, “It’s more than you deserve.” and leaves the room.

She finds Jonas in the next room. He’s on the floor, a shocked expression on his face, his eyes staring blankly at the ceiling. His glasses aren’t even askew. There’s a hole in his forehead. It’s all she can do to not collapse next to him. So much anger mixes in with the grief that she nearly goes back and shoots the Overseer in the head after all, because this. This is more than just cruel. Jonas, sweet, kindhearted Jonas, who had helped take care of her for as long as she could remember, who had played with her when she was young and lonely because her father was working in the clinic, who had essentially been her second parent. Anyone that could shoot a man like that in cold blood must be evil.

She choked back her tears because if she broke down now, she’d never get out of the Vault. She stroked Jonas’s hair once and took his glasses and put them in her pocket. She closed his eyes--and noticed some paper sticking out from his lab coat pocket with her father’s handwriting on it. She grabbed that as well and took off for the Vault entrance.

The great door looms there like it always has, like an eternal guardian, and she approaches the console slowly, almost reverently. As it rolls open, rumbling like a clamor of deafening thunder, the klaxons blaring over top, Felix hears Amata behind her. “Oh my god. You did it. It’s actually open,” she says it in a way that suggests she wasn’t really sure it was possible, and Felix knows the feeling.

This is it. The unknown. The rest of the world. She’d always wanted a chance to see it, but now that she’s on the edge, she’s not sure she’s ready. It would have been nice to have a choice in the matter. Amata wishes her luck and Felix hugs her hard because she’s not sure she’s ever going to see her again. On an impulse that might have been built on the fear of facing the unknown alone, she asks Amata to come with her, knowing that she’s going to say no.

For a split second, Amata’s eyes glint in a way that makes her think she might actually be wrong about the answer. But then she seems to come back to herself and states that she has a responsibility to the Vault, and that she’s the only one with a chance to get through to her father. Felix accepts this and turns toward the door. She takes one deep calming breath and makes her way out for the very first time in her entire life to see what the sky really looks like.                 

**Author's Note:**

> Welp, there it is. Felix's beginning. I always wanted to write it down. I don't think it gets Felix's character across very well, though. Hm. Maybe eventually I'll try writing another version. Until then, it'll do.


End file.
